Savanac
Flame Aflame | 850 Words | Written by Savanac
Item #: 8234
Object Class: Keter
Special Containment Procedures: To combat the spontaneous manifestation of SCP-8234, Foundation regulations concerning the maintenance of fire-hazardous equipment have been temporarily heightened. Additionally, a special round of fire-safety training for Level-3 personnel and below has been approved.
Standard fire suppression procedures are to continue to be observed unless an instance of SCP-8234 is suspected. In which case, the area is to be isolated by facility bulkheads while the nearest available Mobile Task Force is equipped and dispatched. The designated Task Force is to determine the feasibility of capturing SCP-8234 and disengage thereafter.
Description: Several conclusions about the behavior and construct of SCP-8234 have been drawn from the small body of encounters:
Beginning in 2023, the number of documented fires across all Foundation facilities has increased by 22%, with 18% of incidents resulting in instances of SCP-8234.
SCP-8234 is not suspected to manifest within the confines of real space, and reports of altered perception are congruent with the effects imposed by a subdimensional territory.
The consumption of non-living and living matter within the space of its manifestation indicates a Feeder-Class entity.
A variable physical form has been encountered in several cases. However, it has not been observed to leave the space of manifestation.
All manifestations have resolved in less than ten minutes.
Fire suppression systems are ineffective at resolving manifestations, and immediate suppression of the original fire has not proved effective in preventing manifestation.
No instance has manifested from intentional fire.
Aside from intercepted reports from several Groups of Interest, there have been no documented instances of SCP-8234 occurring outside Foundation facilities, indicating a predisposition toward the consumption of or an attraction to anomalous objects.
To date, the loss of three Foundation employees and eleven anomalous objects has been attributed to SCP-8234. A full list of destroyed or lost material is available upon request. No professional investigation of SCP-8234 has yet been conducted within the timeframe of its manifestation, and further contact is necessary to understand the nature of this anomaly.
Description Supplement: Doctor Rutherford of the research personnel at Site-19 encountered SCP-8234 on February 11, 2025. While currently incapable of delivering a recorded debrief, he has instead provided the following written testimony.
It was a small blast from an accidental discharge of SCP-████ under Doctor Sullivan’s purview that I heard from a few doors down. As soon as I left my lab to see, flame was licking the wall across from his door, but it receded quickly and left behind a thick haze in its place. At the time, I thought it was smoke. I do not know what it was, for when I approached, it was hot and stationary, some kind of remnant of the fire that replaced its exact position… aerial tendrils where the fire had been. It slowed my hand, moving through it.
Not far past the doorway, I could see the doctor’s arm and no farther. I thought to grab him then and drag him to first aid, so I stepped through the haze and reached out. And I watched that I closed distance no differently than should have been expected, but it also became apparent that it was significantly farther away than it appeared. It was now very obviously on the other side of the room, and the other side of the room glowed a blanket of faint orange.
I walked in, but his hand still stuck no farther out to me from the haze than it did before, though it was now within my reach. And the doorway was directly behind me; I was perhaps not two steps from the threshold, yet I could also see that the door was immeasurably far away, and now the glow was close enough to singe the hair on my arm outstretched. The anomaly was made evident to me in this moment. As soon as I made contact with the arm, it flinched and wrapped its hand around my wrist, and it was far too hot, to such a degree that our arms immediately began cauterizing together, and it tried to wrench me toward the glow.
I then pulled away hard enough that it all ripped apart, and I almost fell back across the threshold until another hand appeared from the haze, and that’s what clasped across my mouth, which let the other regain itself on my arm. The heat of the thing was such that, had I taken a breath, it would have set my lungs aflame. Even so, I still passed out. What I next saw was another pair of the doctor’s arms crashing down on those that held me—these attached to a shrouded body, assailing viciously. So we tore apart, and the four arms grappled and seared, letting billow real smoke. And while I jumped back through the door and then outside the haze, the arms bound themselves around the body, enveloping it in smouldering flesh, and it was dragged far away from me. So I laid myself in the hall, and I watched as the radiance through the doorframe gathered in on itself, fading into the distance until the lab was left empty under a swathe of char.